Consider Vitamin D in Alzheimer's Prevention and Management

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

I'm Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Over the years, evolving evidence has helped our understanding of whether vitamin D has any potential neuroprotective or therapeutic effect when it comes to Alzheimer's disease. During that time, we've learned more and more about the relationship between vitamin D and other neurologic conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, and its potential protective effects and mechanisms. But from a practical clinical perspective, what is the real story with vitamin D and Alzheimer's prevention and treatment?

When you look at epidemiologic data, it does appear that vitamin D potentially has a protective effect when it comes to Alzheimer's disease. Does that mean that vitamin D should be utilized when trying to reduce a person's risk for Alzheimer's? Well, it depends. If a person's vitamin D level is 25 (nmol/L), 20, or lower, then maybe it makes some practical sense that we should, at a minimum, try to target a vitamin D level above 30. However, an important 2014 study in the journal Neurology^[1]investigating the optimal target level for vitamin D suggests that aiming toward 50 nmol/L may have a better therapeutic effect when it comes to prevention and risk reduction for dementia.